A total of 123,800 Hongkongers have arrived in the UK since the visa programme started in January 2021. Another 28,758 BN(O) visas were approved for Hongkongers already in Britain, which took the total to 152,558.

There have been 182,600 Hong Kong applications for the visa scheme from its launch in January 2021 to June, with 176,407 – 97 per cent – approved.

Willis Fu Yiu-wai, the immigration programme director at Hong Kong-based consultants Goldmax Associates, said the visa requirements were relatively easy to meet and the route accepted a wide range of applicants, such as families with children, which helped account for the scheme’s popularity.

He predicted the high level of interest in the scheme would continue for another six months to a year, with competition from migration policies in Canada.

Margaret Szeto, the founder of migration consultation company Aura Global, said the peak of young families moving to the UK had passed.

Szeto said she was now seeing middle-aged couples who were not in a rush to relocate looking to move abroad.

Krish Kandiah, founder of the UK-based Sanctuary Foundation, whose charity works with new arrivals from Hong Kong as well as other immigrants, said difficulties remained, such as parents juggling full-time work and childcare responsibilities, as well as conversion of qualifications.

“Hongkongers have lots of transferable skills and experience, but sometimes it is the UK employers not being culturally literate themselves … and sometimes it is the Hongkongers needing a bit of time to get used to the different way we do things over here,” he said.

‘Potential waste’: just 30% of Hong Kong BN (O) migrants in UK working full-time

An online survey by the University of Liverpool found only a third of Hongkongers who had recently moved to the UK had landed full-time jobs, despite 80 per cent of them having a university education.

But 61 per cent said they had no intention of returning to the city on a permanent basis in the foreseeable future.

The university polled 1,310 Hongkongers, most of them BN(O) visa holders, between November 1 and December 15 last year and the results were published in June.

Britain also expanded the route last November to allow adult children of BN(O) status holders born on or after July 1, 1997, to apply independently from their parents.

Their dependants, including partners and children aged under 18, are also eligible under the enhanced provisions.

Majority of Hongkongers with BN (O) visas in UK won’t come back, survey finds

An estimated 5.4 million out of the city’s 7.5 million population are eligible for the British visa programme, which allows successful applicants and their dependants to live, work and study in the UK for up to five years, after which they can apply for citizenship.

Britain launched the visa scheme after Beijing imposed the national security law on Hong Kong in June 2020.

The UK slammed the legislation as a “clear and serious breach” of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration that laid out the conditions for the city’s return to Chinese rule.

Australia and Canada also introduced special migration policies for Hongkongers after the national security law came into force, which contributed to a brain drain from the city in three years from 2019.

But government figures showed Hong Kong’s population had increased by 152,000 people from 7,346,100 a year ago to 7,498,100 by the end of June.